The price of failure.

Heard this through the grapevine, so pinches of salt at the ready.

The England football squad stayed at the Culloden last night, one of only two five-star hotels in Northern Ireland. It's a beautiful luxurious castle of a place. Being quite swimmingly rich, they hired the whole place. I assume that this wasn't a special visiting-Northern-Ireland thing, that they do this all the time. Why? If they took, say, the entire fifth floor of a hotel, why on earth would it matter to them whether any of the rooms on the first floor were occupied? But anyway, so the England team's people ring the Culloden and ask to book the entire place, and the hotel start contacting people who've already booked rooms that night to offer them compensation and make alternative arrangements for them. Most people, I imagine, are quite happy to change hotels if they're being offered some decent freebies or bribes.

However, apparently, a couple had booked the place for their wedding. So the groom got a call from the Culloden a few months ago, asking him politely if they'd be willing to relocate their wedding to one of the company's other hotels, in return for all sorts of concessions and compensation. The groom thinks about all the wedding arrangements that'll need to be changed, all the huge hassle involved, the beautiful views that they won't get, and replies that, no, they won't give up their booking for anything less than fifty thousand pounds. The hotel call him back a few minutes later and ask him who to make the cheque out to.

And then they lost. Ah, it warms your heart, so it does.